Scottish
traveller and writer, was born and educated in Lanark. He
was caught in a love-adventure, mutilated of his ears by the
brothers of the lady (hence the sobriquet “Cut-lugged
Willie“, and forced to leave Scotland.

For
nineteen years he travelled, mostly on foot, through Europe,
the Levant, Egypt and northern Africa, covering, according
to his estimate, over 36,000 miles. The story of his adventures
may be drawn from The Discourse of the Rare Adventzues and
painfull Peregrinations of long nineteene Veares (London,
1614; fuller edition, 1632, &c.); A True and Experimentail
Discourse upon the last siege of Breda (London, 1637); and
a similar book giving an account of the siege of Newcastle
and the battle of Marston Moor (Edinburgh, 1645). He is the
author of a Present Surveigh of London (London, 1643).

He
left six poems, written between 1618 and 1640 (reprinted by
Maidment, Edinburgh, 1863). Of these ” Scotland’s
Welcome to King Charles, 1633 “ has considerable antiquarian
interest. His writing has no literary merit; but its excessively
aureate style deserves notice.